1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solid imaging device and a method of driving the solid imaging device, and is applied, for example, to a CMOS image sensor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a CMOS image sensor is known as an example of a solid imaging device. Such a CMOS image sensor is disclosed in Mabuchi, et al., “CMOS Image Sensor Using a Floating Diffusion Driving Buried Photodiode”, ISSCC Digest of Technical Papers, February 2004 (Non-Patent Document 1).
In the solid imaging device disclosed in Non-Patent Document 1, however, since an amplifying transistor operates in an inter-pentapolar region at the time of a booting operation, only ⅔ of the gate capacitance of the amplifier transistor can contribute to the boosting operation.
In addition, in the driving operation of the solid imaging device disclosed in Non-Patent Document 1, in order to select a desired unit pixel, a period in which a drain power supply DRN is decreased to a low level (i.e. a Low-state period) is needed. The drain power supply DRN in the unit pixel also functions to absorb an excess signal charge. In the case where there is a period (Low-state period) in which a high voltage is not applied to the drain power supply DRN, if a high-luminance subject is imaged, an excess charge that overflows from a photodiode cannot be absorbed by the drain power supply DRN, leading to occurrence of blooming.